Ventura: E-Cell

What is Ventura?

Ventura, the largest international business model competition in South India is held annually by the Entrepreneurship Cell of NIT Trichy. Ventura helps students realise their entrepreneurial dreams by providing an ideal platform for budding and future entrepreneurs to learn, ideate and grow. Armed with an array of well-rounded mentoring sessions by leading entrepreneurs and venture promoters, Ventura ’18 is back with a stronger edition with prizes over 2 lakhs to be won and resources worth 1 million USD.

 

What is Breakthrough?

As an organization from NIT Trichy, we’re obliged to give back to our Institution. Breakthrough is one such initiative from E-Cell NIT Trichy to encourage the students of NITT to start their entrepreneurial journey. This annual B-Model competition held exclusively for the students of NIT Trichy has a special award & cash prize. Moreover, the best pitches in this intra NITT competition will be given a direct entry into the Ventura ’18 mentoring round.

 

What is the Business and Social Track of Ventura ’18?

Business track focuses on startup culture that is mainly profit oriented and has a strong customer base.

To promote social entrepreneurship among students and recent graduates, Ventura along with Upaya Social Ventures and Sattva has introduced the Social Track. We have extended our 150+ strong Mentor Network to cater to our new track, creating a platform for social innovations to access funding and resources. Got an idea for a better tomorrow? Here’s your chance to make the world a better place to live in.

 

What is the flow of Ventura?

Ventura Phase 1

It all starts with a 250-word written pitch about your idea as a startup which you have to give at the time of registration. Based on the feasibility and creativity of the idea, a panel of judges analyse and grade the pitch. Close to 50 teams are selected for the 2nd phase of Ventura.

Ventura Phase 2

The prestigious teams which got through the first phase, now undergo rigorous mentoring in two stages: Product Development, and Business Development. This mentoring period goes on for a period of two months.

Another round of pitching takes place after this and the top 15 teams go into the finals of Ventura’18. The finals of Ventura’18 will take place during E – Summit, the flagship event of E-Cell NIT Trichy.

 

Are there Startups that have emerged successful after participating in Ventura?

The following list of Startups have emerged successful from Ventura:

HackerRank

• Focuses on competitive programming challenges for both consumers and businesses.
• Has an online community of 1mn programmers. Customers include Adobe, Amazon, Quora, Facebook, Twitter, Goldman Sachs etc.
• Received $20mn in 4 rounds of funding till date.

 

Sampurn(e)arth

• Customised waste management solutions, including waste audits, collection, recycling and

maintenance. Projected as a zero waste model.

• Over 75 clients including Tata Power, Axis Bank, TCS and L&T. Handled over 2000 tonnes of waste till date.

 

Brisky

• A nightlife discovery platform founded in 2015.
• The startup is a part of Spark10 Accelerator. It is also a part of NASSCOM 10K Program and was also among the seven upcoming startups in India.

 

MukundaFoods

• Maker of the world’s first table top dosa-making machine. Running R&D and manufacturing facility in Bangalore and service centres in Mumbai and Delhi.
• Received a funding of Rs.1 crore from IAN. The company has earned a total revenue of Rs.5 crore till date.

 

Damascus Fortunes

• Low-cost carbon nanomaterials from emissions using patented technology.
• Featured in the Forbes “30 under 30” list. Currently runs offices and operations in Navi Mumbai,

Maharashtra, Gandhidham, Gujarat and Kuala Lumpur.

 

Apart from gaining experience on how to build a Startup, what are the perks of registering for Ventura? What are the resources available to me?

Ventura’18 has a horde of partners to back up its resource requirements.

• Hasura – Free hosting and access to developer plans to help teams rapidly develop software.
• Lawyered – A chance to win free legal consultation to solve all your legal issues.
• F6S – Access to Resources worth 1 million dollars for the winner.
• Gridle – A chance to win $1000 worth credit for team collaboration software.
• Digital Ocean – A chance to access free credits on the Digital Ocean cloud hosting platform.
• iCreate – Best ideas from Breakthrough receive an opportunity for investment from the Spark up Idea fund for up to Rs.50,000 from iCreate, a leading Startup Incubator in Ahmedabad.
• Notify Visitors, Invite Referrals – Free access to software for managing customer engagement and also referrals.
• Balsamiq – Discounted and free access to the leading international wireframing and prototyping app.
• JustVideos – Video promotion services for your startup.

 

What’s the F6s Alpha Card and what’s the buzz around it?

F6s, which provides a premier platform and online community for startups, has created the Alpha Card to provide top startup founders each with VIP access to $1 million in free growth tools and services. Startup founders selected for the Alpha Card get access to a slew of perks provided by more than 100 companies, including (but not limited to):

• Free round-trip flights on American Airline.
• Elite status and discounts on other airlines, hotels, and car rentals, including Avis, The Standard and Zipcar.
• Priority access to startup events like Mobile World Congress 4YFN and the LAUNCH Festival.
• Free Rackspace hosting.
• Free email infrastructure from SendGrid.
• Access to co-working spaces like WeWork.

 

How do I register?

Head up to the official website of the Entrepreneurship Cell, NIT Trichy and you will see links for Ventura registration on the website.  Or you could follow the direct link: www.ecell-nitt.org/ventura.html

 

I don’t know anything about startup culture. How can I possibly register for Ventura?

Elon Musk. Steve Jobs. Bill Gates. Mark Zuckerberg. Narayana Murthy. Pretty powerful names right?!

Do you want to see your name up there someday? In the words of Lao Tzu, the famed Chinese philosopher, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. All it takes is the audacity to take that single step.

Register soon for Ventura! The last day to register is November 30!